- Park West certainly isn't Chicago's leading electronic music venue. Programming in upcoming weeks includes Mavis Staples, Will Downing's Sweet Sexy and Keller Williams. Yet the unlikely venue recently proved to be fitting for a very unlikely show from one of electronic music's biggest names: DJ Shadow.
The man who sold my visiting friend a ticket perhaps captured the expectations best while excitedly sharing the news of DJ Shadow's setup an hour before the show. Years he'd been waiting for this show, and it was rumored as the best visual spectacle since Daft Punk's pyramid in 2007. His favorite turntablist, he said, would be scratching 45"'s inside a large sphere, projected with visuals and illuminated to reveal the fitting "shadow" of the DJ inside.
Indeed, the crowd seemed nothing less than well-versed on their history of DJ Shadow, hip-hop and turntablism, amassing an incredible number of beanies, plaid shirts and sneakers while uninterestedly nodding and chatting over opener Pigeon John. Afterwards, the large sphere waited on the panoramic stage, reading "Shadowsphere Standby" and "Shadowsphere Awaiting Host" in-between SMS text fan club promotions. It was clear that this was not a DJ Shadow show from the Endtroducing... era.
This evolution became more and more obvious throughout the night. DJ Shadow finally emerged to a roar of clapping, bowed and took his place inside the sphere. The first sound was a vocal sample, hiccupping "does anyone remember who I am?" under his seasoned fingertips before the set went into totally unexpected directions. Classic tunes like the Pharcyde's "Passing Me By" and a repertoire of Shadow's older work weaved their way through heavy drum and bass refixes and a Lil Wayne sample while grids of lasers and ghettoblaster graphics criss-crossed the sphere and backdrop. The sphere was swung around to reveal Shadow hovering over CDJs—"what kind of DJ Shadow is this?" murmured the kid next to me—but Shadow had his explanations.
"I wanted to articulate that DJing is a progressive art form," he shared halfway through the show. "I'm sick of DJs playing the same records over and over again." Indeed it was a progression of sorts, abandoning vinyl for digital and trip-hop for bits of dubstep. Patterns of Lady GaGa, Simon Cowell, Justin Bieber and Shakira exploded in a bloody graphic statement, "This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)," roaring with a 170-bpm tempo.
"Organ Donor" was, at least, scratched in nearly original, flawless form, and as the show's closer and most famed Shadow tune, was the highlight of the night for the crowd. This was the show chosen for the filming of Shadow's tour DVD, apparently intended as the ultimate of Shadow's current mindstate in music. Faces were stunned as the lights came to a dewy glow again; a mix of sensory assault and unexpected high-speed bass threw every expectation of this show off track. "I'll never stop trying to push shit forward," he said, before coming to stage edge for some handshakes. An encore was performed, curiously returning to old-school DJ Shadow form with soul samples and hip-hop beats for a few tracks, and he exited, leaving the SMS fan club promotion alone onstage once more.